George R.R. Martin released an excerpt this week from The Winds of Winter, the planned sixth book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, on which HBO’s Game of Thrones is based. Martin has yet to finish the book, or even announce a release date for it, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Here’s a quick excerpt from the excerpt, which will be utterly baffling if you haven’t read the books:

The Lyseni was a very different sort of man than Chain. This one will let nothing slip, she realized, after a scant few hours in his company. Maar was glib enough, but he had perfected the art of talking a great deal whilst saying nothing. As for the riders who had come with him, they might as well have been mutes for all that her own men were able to get out of them.Arianne decided to confront him openly. On the evening of their fifth day out of Mistwood, as they made camp beside the tumbled ruins of an old tower overgrown by vines and moss, she settled down beside him and said, “Is it true that you have elephants with you?”“A few,” said Lysono Maar, with a smile and a shrug.“And dragons? How many dragons do you have?”“One.”